On Wednesday, December 1st, a number of celebrity deaths were reported. But how did the celebrities fare in raising money through their digital deaths? Why did Usher fail?

On Wednesday, December 1st, a number of celebrity deaths were reported. No, not in the true sense of the word, but a number of celebrities added their names to a good cause for World AIDS Day and AIDS awareness to help fight the disease in Africa and India. In order to help raise money, the celebrities taking part would “die” and go silent on their Twitter accounts and Facebook pages until $1 million dollars was raised for the effort.

The cause was put together by singer Alicia Keys as part of her Keep A Child Alive charity, and some of the high profile celebrity social media users taking part included the likes of Usher, Ryan Seacrest, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Elijah Wood and Kim Kardashian. The celebrities put together a video marking their digital death and had photos taken of them ‘dead’ for the cause. Some of the celebrities were worried about Twitter withdrawals, but most stuck through it to the end! A lot of work went into this, and it was all for a very good cause. Bringing awareness to a disease that has plagued this country and the world for decades.

Was this cause successful? Did the funds roll in? No, not right away. Not even close in fact. On Monday morning, the number raised so far was a little under $300,000. That number was far from the desired one milliion dollars that was the goal of the project. Celebrities started to wonder if their death would be prolonged without the funds coming in. Usher broke his silence via Twitter on Sunday night. He broke his pledge to the cause to tweet his friend a birthday message. Something that could have waited possibly, but he just had to show his friend love.

It started to look like the campaign was a complete failure, but one large donation brought the cause to an end Monday afternoon. Celebrities are rising from the dead and rejoining the ranks of the social media users of the world. This is all thanks to one donation of half a million dollars made by a billionaire on Monday. Stewart Rahr, the owner of pharmaceutical company, Kinray, was behind the generous donation.

Alicia Keys made the following statement about the end of the campaign on Monday: “From the bottom of my heart, thank you to all of the fans, friends, and artists who joined this cause. I’m incredibly inspired by all of the donations that have been made to help us achieve our goal and so humbled by the outpour of support from everyone.”

Can it be said that this campaign was a success? Yes and no. The money was raised by the campaign, but the money could have come in much faster. It took nearly a week for the funds to be raised. It was then raised by the help of one man with a very generous donation. Without Rahr’s donation to the cause, the celebrities would still be sitting there silent without Twitter or Facebook contact.

The money will help the cause it was meant to, but the effort cannot be called a complete success. A complete success would have seen those funds come in much quicker. Alicia Keys did a good thing here though. There is no doubt about that. Her efforts and those that joined in with her should be applauded. The question here is – why didn’t those funds roll in right away? Did people want the celebrities to stay dead and silent? That is some food for thought.